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The same words of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus in every English translation on the site, side by side.

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Meditations 12.31

Marcus Aurelius · Open this passage

George Long

1862 · default

What dost thou wish—to continue to exist? Well, dost thou wish to have sensation, movement, growth, and then again to cease to grow, to use thy speech, to think? What is there of all these things which seems to thee worth desiring? But if it is easy to set little value on all these things, turn to that which remains, which is to follow reason and God. But it is inconsistent with honoring reason and God to be troubled because by death a man will be deprived of the other things.

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C. R. Haines

1916

What dost thou ask for? Continued existence? But what of sensation? Of desire? Of growth? Of the use of speech? The exercise of thought? Which of these, thinkest thou, is a thing to long for? But if these things are each and all of no account, address thyself to a final endeavour to follow Reason and to follow God. But it militates against this to prize such things, and to grieve if death comes to deprive us of them.

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Which translation of the Meditations?

Every translation here is complete and free to read in full on this site. They differ in age and in voice. The measurements below are taken from the whole of each translation.

TranslationWordsWords per sentence“Thou” and “thy” per 1,000 wordsIn a sentence
George Long186245,58829.325.1Victorian English, with “thou” and “thy” throughout. Square brackets mark words Long added to complete the sense. The translation this site uses by default.
C. R. Haines191643,59924.4 (shortest)23.8The Loeb Classical Library edition, printed facing the Greek. Still uses “thou”, but in shorter sentences, and often more vivid.

Shorter sentences and fewer old forms usually make for an easier read; the older, more literal versions are better for checking what the original says. A good way to use them is to read in one and, when a sentence stops you, look at it here in the others.